Jul 13, 2008 -- 9:34PM, REteach wrote:

Sexual orientation is an orientation. It is who we find sexy and who we fall in love with. Sexual orientation is not necessarily about with whom we have sex. Professional sex workers have sex with people without necessarily finding them sexually attractive. Inmates will have sex with someone who is available, but with whom they would never have sex given a choice. People can choose not to act on their preferences. Lots of gay people try to marry someone of the opposite sex in order to fit in or meet societal expectations. However, what typically happens is that they are not happy and their spouse is writing to Dear Abby wondering why they never have sex--check out the Straight Spouse Network to see the damage that comes from trying to pretend to be what society wants. Some people are bisexual. They can legitimately fall in love and enjoy sex with either men or women. These folks can legitimately move from being in love with someone of the same sex to finding a soul mate of the opposite sex. They doesn't mean they are ex-gay. There is no scientific evidence to show that conversion therapy works. There is evidence that conversion therapy can be psychologically damaging. One of the posters here has offered a vast sum of money to anyone who can prove he has changed his sexual orientation. For instance, we could hook your friend up to a device that measures penile erections and show him heterosexual sex movies and homosexual sex movies and see what happens. His erections will tell us the truth. Interestingly there is scientific evidence that homophobic men get erections while watching male/male sex, but nonhomophobic straight men do not. This tells us an awful lot. We have seen it here on Beliefnet, too. Given enough time, the homophobic posters often end up admitting to same sex attractions. Straight guys just don't do that.

I hope I'm doing this right , but ....I'd like tp respond to this posting by RETeach , from July of 2008 .She is the first person online that I've seen describe homosexuality for what it is . It is primarily about who you fall in love with. Various sex acts are secondary , to say the least. I'm constantly amazed & irritated by the insisted emphasis on sex. If what people engage in sexually appeared in print on their foreheads while sitting in the pews at church , it would be an eye opener. I also do not understand why right wing Christian leaders get away with the lies they disseminate about homosexual persons. And , I'm not referring to biblically based religious beliefs. Example : Pat Robertson said that gay adoptions are a road to child molestation. The vast majority of paedophiles and sexual predators are heterosexual...source ? : the RCMP , the FBI , Interpol , and Scotland Yard (UK). Religion should never give one the license to slander an entire segment of humanity. RETeach --- thank you . ( I also grew up Catholic , back in the days of 'Dominus vobiscum'.